2012年4月17日

Just consider the work your brain does when you walk to the local store to pick up a grocery item. Every step you take, you have to use 3-D visualization to navigate the space to make sure you don’t bump into other people or objects. The task becomes even more complicated when you’re driving a car. Things move faster and you have to use predictive vision to determine where all the other road users might be at any given moment. You use visual and spatial reasoning within days of being born. Your visual cortex begins to adapt to light right after birth and, within weeks, you’re able to separate your parents’ faces from the myriad colors and shapes around you. At this stage, nothing fascinates you more than your mother’s face. Then, as you grow older, you play many games to develop your visual sense. For example, when you are trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle you have to figure out how to put the pieces together to recreate the picture on the front of the box. The way the different shapes fit together hones your ability to reason, deduce, analyze, and solve problems.

Spatial awareness
Visual and spatial thinking is, of course, important in memory—consider how taxi drivers navigate their way through the tangle of city streets. But it’s also a vital skill in many other professions. Any line of work that involves complex design and arrangement, such as architecture or urban planning, demands visual thinking. The people who work in these fields rely on their ability to present ideas diagramatically. On a much smaller scale, if you’re planning a day outdoors and need to fill a picnic hamper, you will have to visualize how to fit the food, plates, and utensils into the confined space before you begin loading.